What's the video card in your Mac

I've got 10.6 on the two computers I use most. I've never had a problem mounting a USB stick on either machine (I have two different USB sticks I use regularly and a couple of older ones I drag out now and then). Nor using any other USB device for that matter (mouse, printer, scanner). I've also never had a kernel panic on either machine, and the only application crashes have been caused by apps which are known to be incompatible. I do have one or two of those that I'd have liked to see updated, but not enough to make me downgrade. I also have at least one game that got more stable after I upgraded to Snow Leopard.
In fact the only issue I have that I would say is a bug in the OS is the one where the Finder sometimes displays applications with the generic application icon instead of the one inside the bundle, and that is at least much less common under 10.6.4.

(Nov 11, 2010 02:47 PM)OneSadCookie Wrote: I've never heard of problems with 10.6 either. As far as I'm concerned, it's always been at least as good as 10.5 ever was.

It's probably more related to the Geforce 285. Both my friends and I have it, both of us have problems with Blizzard games (both WoW and SC2) that cause system crashes. I can't pinpoint the blame (GRAPHICS DRIVERS!?), but no game should cause a complete and utter system failure.

(Nov 11, 2010 02:53 PM)skyhawk Wrote: I can't pinpoint the blame (GRAPHICS DRIVERS!?), but no game should cause a complete and utter system failure.

Actually, the game could cause a system freeze if they inadvertently access a GL context from another thread without locking it. I am *really* good at locking up my box this way when I'm not thinking about it while using Display Link.

Oh yeah, I can reproduce it, no problemo. I thought it shouldn't freeze either, but I gave it a pass because I figured it's probably some pretty low-level hardware conflict. It's one of those things that keeps my mind focused on locking the threads properly, so I see it as beneficial on that level. It certainly would be better if it crashed the app instead of freezing the machine though, so I'll file a bug on it per your recommendation when I get a little spare time to do so.

(Nov 11, 2010 05:45 AM)Ingemar Wrote: Why don't you want to support 10.4? I understand if you want to drop the GMA950, but 10.4 is a very solid and stable OSX - less buggy than anything later. (10.6 is so buggy it is close to useless IMHO. I hear quite a few users are downgrading to 10.5!)

I've only had issues with 10.6.5 betas, which disappeared with the final release. All problems I've had with Leopard or Snow Leopard have been traced back to a hard drive error so far. Easily fixed stuff, never anything where I yell "Curse you, Apple!"

I was never around for 10.4, and I don't have any testers for it, since all PPC users I know have upgraded to 10.5. I don't do any game stuff professionally enough to require it for now (bar any contracts that should magically land in my lap), and the percentage of Tiger users in various demographics just isn't enough for me. Any support in a game would be a side-effect of an engine I'm using having great backwards compatibility.

The Sparkle stats show 10.4 is quite a minority:http://www.adium.im/sparkle/
(I think a non-game app many use is a decent enough way to count)

I personally upgraded the last known Tiger system in my part of the city this summer

(Nov 11, 2010 02:53 PM)skyhawk Wrote: no game should cause a complete and utter system failure.

radar, or it didn't happen.

No clue what this means or is saying.

(Nov 11, 2010 04:21 PM)OneSadCookie Wrote: That still shouldn't cause a system hang. Application crash, sure. File a bug if you can reproduce it. http://bugreport.apple.com/

I've sent in numerous crash reports (the ones I got when my system rebooted) with explanations (sometimes quite vulgar after the third one in a night). I haven't seen it in awhile since X.6.4 (maybe once every month now?). My friend was seeing it more often with X.6.4 vs X.6.3

(Nov 12, 2010 12:01 PM)skyhawk Wrote: No clue what this means or is saying.

It means that if you would like to help improve the situation, you should file a bug report at bugreport.apple.com, with your system profile, a copy-paste of the NVDA GPU messages in /var/log/kernel.log, and a description of what you were doing at the time, with as clear as possible steps to reproduce.

That way the folks who are responsible for fixing this have some actionable data in front of them.

If you are a developer and you believe you have found a defect in the OS, you should send feedback to Apple. A bug report is feedback.

(Nov 11, 2010 10:45 PM)gnurf Wrote: The Sparkle stats show 10.4 is quite a minority:http://www.adium.im/sparkle/
(I think a non-game app many use is a decent enough way to count)

That depends entirely on how well that particular application supports 10.4, so it may not be entrely representative. A whole lot of old Macs can't go beyond 10.4, and another bunch stops at 10.5, and all those systems don't end up in the trash just because of that, many are used as backups or for uses appropriate for them. Their users don't shop for new games much though. (It isn't very rewarding to try new games on a Pismo or a G4.)

(Nov 12, 2010 12:08 PM)Skorche Wrote: @skyhawk radar is the name of Apple's bug tracking site I think

thanks!

(Nov 12, 2010 01:02 PM)arekkusu Wrote: It means that if you would like to help improve the situation, you should file a bug report at bugreport.apple.com, with your system profile, a copy-paste of the NVDA GPU messages in /var/log/kernel.log, and a description of what you were doing at the time, with as clear as possible steps to reproduce.

See previous posts regarding what I was doing. Anyways, I didn't know there was a bug site other than at launch up I could send the crash reports. (which from what I gather from your charade, mean nothing, even if well filled out). I now know otherwise.

Quote:If you are a developer and you believe you have found a defect in the OS, you should send feedback to Apple. A bug report is feedback.
Help Apple help you.

Is it really? Isn't it a whole lot of form-filling to do? It can't be as bad as Bugzilla (which really scares me off) but I made some attempts to file some of the numerous bugs that I have had to make workarounds for, and in the end it just wasn't worth the trouble. My estimate was that it would cost me at least half a day's work for each bug, including a thorough description, but worst of all, a well tested example program demonstrating the problem. I could easily spend a week or two only reporting bugs, and what is that worth for me?

My experience is that if I try to convince developers that there is a bug, they will blame my system (even when I say that I have tested on three different systems), blame weaknesses in my example program (so I will have to rewrite it several times before they accept that it isn't my fault) and take any opportunity to blame my non-standard setup of languages and development tools. I just don't have the time to mess with that. I make my workarounds and go on with my work.

But by all means convince me of the fame, wealth and glory in bug reporting.